


End of the Line

by chemically_imbalanced_romance



Series: The Witching Hour [3]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Blood, Cussing, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Knives, lmk if i missed anything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 18:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19706917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chemically_imbalanced_romance/pseuds/chemically_imbalanced_romance
Summary: How the others find Riley





	End of the Line

**Author's Note:**

> Patton uses she/they pronouns

Logan passed the local community theatre as he made his way home from Roman’s. It was late, the sky dark and filled with stars. It had just stopped raining. If Patton were here, she’d insist on jumping in each puddle. 

Logan stopped as a sob echoed down the alley. 

He pulled the pocket knife he kept on him out and stayed alert as he inched towards the alley. He looked inside just in time to see a boy his age fall to the ground, blood pouring out of their split open throat. 

Logan dropped the knife and ran to catch him, but the boy fell right through his arms. Logan stepped back, stepping in the boy’s blood, but it didn’t dirty his shoes. 

His eyes watered as the boy choked on his blood, crawling towards him. Logan knelt in front of him and went to pick him up, to get him to a hospital- And he disappeared. 

Logan looked around, panting, but there was no trace of him. Even the blood was gone. He wrapped his arms around himself and sobbed. 

***

“Here, sweetie.” Patton handed Logan a cup of steaming coffee. 

Logan took it, and downed half of it. He was shivering, his eyes bloodshot. 

“Do you wanna… Tell us what happened?” Roman asked nervously. Patton stared at him with wide, concerned eyes. 

Logan quietly went through what happened. Part of him was embarrassed- Before Virgil, he was so insistent on not believing in ghosts. Now he was making up his own stories. 

Patton started crying halfway through, which set Logan off again. Roman pulled them both halfway into his lap and held them tight. 

“I’m okay,” Logan insisted after a while, pulling away. “I’m good now.” He finished his coffee. “But, I just… Don’t understand.”

“It was a ghost, wasn’t it?” Patton asked. 

“But ghosts are different.” Roman frowned in confusion. “They can  _ talk _ , and  _ think _ , and- and move! And they’re already dead.”

“We should ask Virgil,” Logan said. “He would know.” 

Patton perked up. “Yeah, let’s do that!” 

Roman grumbled something about the asshole always stealing his coffee, but obliged. “Fine. Virgil!” 

“Sounds like a ghost to me.” 

They all jumped and screamed. Virgil lounged on the stairs that led up to the kitchen. 

“Stop doing that!” Roman whined. 

Patton ran over to him, Virgil laughing and hugging her back. Virgil pulled Patton into his lap, and Patton produced a lollipop for him. 

“How could it be a ghost?” Roman asked. “Ghosts don’t die.” 

“He’s probably stuck in a loop.”

“Stuck in a loop?”

“Yeah, a loop.”

“A loop?”

“ _ Stop, _ ” Logan groaned. 

Virgil rubbed Patton’s back as he spoke. “A lot of ghosts who can’t handle the fact that they’re dead relive their death over and over again. These are the least sentient of ghosts, the lowest of experience.”

“‘Sentient?’” Logan asked curiously. 

“Right. Every ghost starts out ‘level zero,’ basically. You can’t talk to living people, you can’t touch anything, sometimes you sink through the fucking floor. You can’t do anything. The more you practice, though, the better you get. The more  _ human _ you get.”

“Really?” Logan looked excited. 

Virgil chuckled. “Yeah. You can basically become immortal.” 

“Is that what you want to do?” Patton asked. 

He looked away. “Uh, no. I’m waiting to be taken.”

“Taken?” 

“Yeah, taken. You know. Like…” 

“Heaven?” Patton asked. “Heaven’s real?” 

“I mean, I think so. Ghosts have been taken before. But I’m not waiting on heaven, I actually believe in reincarnation, so-” 

“Wait,” Roman stopped him. “You don’t  _ know _ what happens?”

Virgil looked at Roman. “No? How would I?” 

“You’re a ghost!” He cried. “How could you not know?! You’re literally  _ living _ in the afterlife!”

Virgil crossed his arms over his chest. “That doesn’t make me a fucking expert. If someone needed fucking surgery, would you know all the ins and outs of that?” 

He blinked. “No…” 

“I don’t have nearly the amount of experience you think I do,” Virgil said. “I can’t even leave the house.” 

“You can’t?” Patton frowned. “Why?” 

He shrugged. “I died here. I’m not sentient enough to go too far. It makes me nauseous at best, at worst, well…” 

“So what do we do?” Roman asked. 

“Right, right.” Virgil closed his eyes, thinking for a minute. “I don’t know much about loops- I wasn’t in one. But from what I heard, you need to scare him enough to shock him out of it. Use something from how he died.” 

“You mean we have to… Trigger him?” Patton asked meekly. 

“I guess so.” 

“But why am I suddenly seeing him?” Logan asked. “I take that walk every day. I didn’t see anything on the news about a recent death.” 

“Well, you’ve been talking to me.” Virgil looked at all of them. “The more you expose yourself to the spirit dimension, the more it exposes itself to you.” 

“So we’re gonna just be walking around with some freaking six sence?!” Roman cried. 

Virgil rolled his eyes. “You’ve seen ghosts before. If they’re experienced enough, you can’t even tell them from human. It’s like passing a trans person down the street, you can’t tell.” 

“Interesting. And if we were to stop talking to you, not help that boy, would we stop seeing spirits?” 

“Maybe. You can’t really reverse it. It would just stop progressing.” 

“Okay,” Logan stood up, “we’ll go back tomorrow. I’ll do some research during lunch to find out what I can about his death.”

“How?” Roman asked. “You don’t even know his name.” 

“Never stopped me before.”

Roman blinked. “Okay.” 

“Can I walk you home?” Patton asked. Virgil pouted. 

Logan went to decline, but hesitated. He really didn’t want to make that walk alone again. “Sure.” 

They left, leaving Virgil and Roman alone. “I’m going to bed,” Roman said awkwardly. 

Virgil laughed. “No, you’re not, you’re going to watch Disney channel reruns until three in the morning.”

“IS THERE NO PRIVACY IN THIS HOUSE?” 

The next day, Logan spent his lunch break researching about the boy he saw. He ended up skipping the rest of his class so he didn’t lose his place. He found out the boy was named Riley Cornell, and was murdered five years ago. Nobody knows who did it, but they suspected it was a hate crime. His body was found in the alley the next morning, still in his costume and stage makeup. 

“We have to pretend to be his killer,” Logan said. 

They were standing by the alley, just out of eye sight. 

Patton’s eyes widened. “ _ What? _ ” 

“That’s crazy!” Roman insisted. 

“Virgil said it himself, we have to trigger him.” 

Patton shook her head. “No. No.” 

“Fine, I’ll do it.” Logan stepped into the alley with determination, but the minute he saw Riley pantomime being shoved into the wall, his terrified eyes focused on something that wasn’t really there, he wilted. 

He remembered last night, watching him die, and he couldn’t do it. 

Roman put his hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. I can do it.” 

Patton pulled Logan into her arms and held him tight Riley sobbed out. Roman grit his teeth, opened Logan’s pocket knife, and went through the motion of slitting Riley’s throat. There was no friction, no real contact- Roman focused on that as Riley fell to the ground with blood dripping past his fingers. 

They all looked at each other for a split second, unsure if it worked. Then Riley looked up and met Logan’s eyes. 

“Help,” he choked out. 

Logan broke from Patton’s hold and sprinted over to him, kneeling in front of him and grabbing his shoulder. “You’re dead!” He yelled, meeting his eyes. “Snap out of it, you’re dead! YOU’RE DEAD!” 

Riley’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell over. He went through Logan’s arms, but he didn’t disappear. He was translucent, but breathing. 

“What- What do we do now?” Patton asked, now behind Logan. 

“Virgil would know,” Logan said. 

“We just…” Roman stared at the ghost, bewildered, “leave him here?”

“What else could we do?” Logan frowned down at him. “We can’t pick him up. We can’t  _ wake _ him up. Virgil will know how we can help him.” 

Patton and Roman looked at each other, and reluctantly agreed. 

They had no idea who Riley was, how they could help him, or how they ended up in all this. But they did know Riley wasn’t the last ghost they’d meet. 


End file.
